Boys' Toys
by Solsbury Girl
Summary: Ever wonder what happened after they left the carpark at the end of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang?


**Boys' Toys**

Jack watched in shock as John disappeared back into the Rift, having dropped his bombshell about Gray. For a moment, which seemed like an eternity, he stood rooted numbly to the spot. He had to force himself back to the present. "It's nothing. Let's get back to work." He had a temporal displacement to deal with. He led the team back to the vehicles.

"OK," he said, turning to face them. "We have to make ourselves scarce for the next 24 hours; can't afford to run into us. Need to figure out where we can go and lie low."

Owen groaned and staggered, reaching out to Gwen for support. Gwen caught him just as he started to slump towards the ground.

"Jack," she said urgently. "I think the first place we need to go is the hospital. Owen's losing blood. He needs proper treatment for that gunshot wound to his hip. He's been limping around with it for hours now, it'll get infected, he's already feverish."

Owen flashed her a grateful look as she helped him into the back of SUV.

"Try not to get blood all over the seats," warned Ianto.

Owen was feeling too weak to even come back with a putdown.

Jack still had the keys to Owen's car. He'd been driving earlier when he and Owen had screeched up onto the carpark roof in the nick of time to save Gwen. "OK, Gwen, you and Tosh take Owen to the hospital. Ianto, you're with me. We need to stash Owen's car someplace that our otherselves won't find it. And I guess it needs to be underground somewhere. Don't want the Cardiff rain getting on the nice leather upholstery. We had probably better take it some place a fair distance away to be on the safe side. Like, er, Llanwrtyd Wells."

"Jack, that's over 70 miles away!" exclaimed Ianto as Jack swung into the driving seat of the sports car and gunned it into life with obvious pleasure. He slammed the sports car into first gear and screeched down the ramp off the carpark roof.

"Better safe than sorry." said Jack, with a glitter of excitement in his eye as he swung the car round the tight turns on the exit ramp. It was a technique Ianto'd seen Jack use many times before in the SUV. Clearly no matter what had happened while he'd been away, driving lessons hadn't been on the agenda.

Ianto couldn't help but think that if Owen had been driving a Ford Fiesta, Jack would have chosen to drive the SUV to the hospital instead of insisting on slinging the sports car around the back roads of Wales.

They shot through the traffic, with Ianto braced against the dashboard as if he was on a white knuckle ride at the fairground.

Ianto and Owen didn't socialize outside work, and barely spoke much in work, but even so Ianto was fairly sure that he didn't remember Owen mentioning that he was planning to get a new car. But this one certainly did seem like a vehicle Owen would covert. Such a shame that he'd been injured on the day he was test driving it. He was sure they'd not hear the end of that for a month or two.

"Jesus, Jack!" swore Ianto. "For heaven's sakes be careful. You took that last corner on two wheels, and one of those was the steering wheel."

Jack smiled and pushed the gas pedal further to the floor. Ianto sighed.

"You're not in the Torchwood SUV now, you know. If you carry on like this, you are certain to be stopped by the ……"

At that moment Ianto heard the tell-tale sound of a police siren close behind them, and turned to see the flashing blue lights.

"Told you!" he said, smugly.

* * *

Gwen and Tosh were sitting with Owen, who had been treated swiftly and put to bed, despite his protests that he was OK.

His friend, Dr Rhodri Jenkins, had been called upon by both Owen and the duty doctor to mediate.

"Sorry, Owen." Rhodri had adjudicated. "But until that drip has run through you and your vitals are a little more stable, you aren't going anywhere. You can go home later though."

Owen had sighed deeply, but the girls had convinced him that, as they needed a place to hole up anyway, the hospital was as good a place to be as any. So they sat watching television, waiting for Jack and Ianto to get back.

"They're taking their time," said Gwen. "I hope nothing's gone wrong. What if they've run into the other versions of us? I wonder what would happen?"

Tosh launched into a detailed discussion of the various theories related to temporal displacement. She'd got as far as the Temporal Disinterest Hypothesis when Gwen's phone rang.

"Saved by the bell," breathed Owen, in relief. Tosh was a nice girl, but get her on a subject that interested her and she sometimes failed to notice that it didn't necessarily interest everyone else quite as much.

"Hello Jack. We were wondering where you'd got to. Not run off and left us again, I hope." Even Tosh stopped to eavesdrop on Gwen's end of the conversation. "So, where are you then? You're where? What? Tell me you're joking. You aren't?"

Owen and Tosh were both gesticulating wildly to her, wanting more information. She ignored them.

"And where's Ianto? Is he with you? Good. Oh, but he's not speaking to you. I can understand that. And he's not speaking to Owen either? Or making either of you coffee ever again. I can understand that too. OK, Jack, as soon as Owen is released from the hospital we'll come and get you. But at the moment, given that we are trying to avoid our past selves, it seems to me that you are probably in the safest place you could be. What? You are in the same room as Ianto? Oh, no, I can see that's probably not at all safe at the moment. But you'll just have to deal with it. We'll come by later. Put Ianto on, will you? Thanks. Bye Jack."

Gwen's tone softened. "How are you, pet? Are you OK? It must have been quite a shock for you." she paused "You're going to do what to him?" she listened for a long time without speaking, a look of increasing horror spreading across her face. "And that too? Oooh, nasty. But I don't blame you at all. OK, we'll see you later."

Gwen clicked the phone and ended the call. She looked at the worried, expectant faces of the others and then exploded into a gale of laughter.

"Oh God, Owen. I wouldn't like to be you right now!" she said, as soon as she recovered enough to speak again. "Especially as you can't even walk, let alone run. And if I were you at the moment, I'd want to run."

Owen and Tosh exchanged glances.

"What's going on, Gwen?" asked Tosh. "Where are Jack and Ianto?"

Gwen broke up again but recovered herself a little quicker this time.

"Owen. That car that you and Jack arrived on the roof in. It wasn't yours, was it?"

Owen slid off his pillows, further down into the bed, pulling the blanket protectively up under his chin. He hoped it might make him look a little extra vulnerable and deserving of sympathy. "Er, no. Not exactly mine."

"Not at all yours, actually."

"Nope."

"Whose car was it?"

"I don't know."

"Then how come you were blasting around Cardiff in it like Jeremy Clarkson all morning yesterday? You thought we didn't notice you slip out but the CCTV cameras picked you up coming back into the city centre."

Owen groaned "I'd rather you'd said Jensen Button or Lewis Hamilton," he complained.

"Don't avoid the subject. If you didn't know who it belonged to, why were you driving it?"

Owen took a deep breath. "It was the car the Blowfish was driving. I've always wanted to try one of those, but I never seem to have time for a proper test drive, so I thought I'd just drop it off at the police station after we'd sorted this out, so they could return it to the rightful owner. But then things all got out of hand at the Hub, Jack and I had to drive like Lewis Hamilton" he glared pointedly at Gwen "to get there to save your sorry arse from Captain John Hart. So don't you go giving me a hard time about not getting that car back to the police for them to return it to its rightful owner. You're not in charge any more, Gwen. Jack's back."

Gwen smiled. Tosh was surprised at how well she'd taken that last out burst. "Oh yes, Jack's back. And trust me, he's not happy."

Owen pushed himself back up the bed, wincing a little as he did so. "That reminds me, exactly where is Jack? Why isn't he back here yet? He's been gone ages."

"That," said Gwen, "is because he is currently being held in a police cell on counts of dangerous driving, endangering the public, and automobile theft. They stopped him for driving offenses, and then ran a make on the car index plate "CK07 YBH". And do you know what? The police computer said it had been stolen the previous day. So they arrested him and Ianto. And when the hospital lets you out of here, we are all – **_all_** - going down there to post bail for them."

What little colour he'd regained drained instantly from Owen's face. "Oh fuck," he breathed. "And where precisely is Ianto?"

"He is in the same cell as Jack." replied Gwen. "And apparently he is even more pissed off with Jack than Jack is with you. Jack's actual words were: "Gwen you've got to come and get me, I'd be safer in a cell with Janet."

"And what did Ianto say when you spoke to him?"

"He said, and I quote, 'There's a coincidence. I was planning to lock both Jack and Owen in the cells with Janet. For a week. Naked.'"

"Do you know," said Owen "I don't think I'm in quite such a hurry to get out of here after all. Quick, '**_Gone With the Wind'_** is just starting on the TV. And then I want to finish reading '**_War and Peace'_**. I'm up as far as page 170."

**The End**

* * *

I noticed last night that the car driven by the Blowfish in _**Kiss Kiss Bang Bang**_ is the same car that Jack and Owen arrive in on the carpark roof at the end of the episode. I don't remember this being explained at all, so I guess it is a continuity error. I expect it has been discussed at length in Torchwood forums, but I don't go there! Feel free to tell me if there is a logical explanation.

So this is my take on explaining it, because I reckon that if it had really been Owen's car that the Blowfish stole, just to annoy Torchwood, then Owen wouldn't have been quite so quick to try to shoot out its tyres at the start. And Ianto would have surely had a quiet quip to wind him up about letting an alien get his car keys!


End file.
